Guest Post and Giveaway: The Starting With the Unexpected Blog Tour with Andi Van

The Novel Approach welcomes author Andi Van today on the tour for her debut novel, Starting With the Unexpected. Andi’s written a five part progressive story for the tour, and what you’re about to see right now is Chapter Three, so if you have some catching up to do, you can find the entire Tour Schedule HERE.

As for the giveaway portion of the tour, you can enter for the chance to win a Print copy of the book OR one of two E-books up for grabs. To enter, just click on the Rafflecopter widget below.

Good luck!

Anticipated Chaos [Part Three]:

In my experience, when people hear “country club”, they tend to think of a bunch of wealthy snobs. While there’s some truth in that, it only applies to about half of Jordan’s customers. The other half? Well, they’re odd ducks.

Take the lion lady’s husband, for example. We always referred to her as “the lion lady” because of the massive stone lions guarding her house. When Jordan initially took over the route, he had no idea she was married, and when I met her I honestly got the impression she was a lesbian.

Bob proved us wrong. Bob’s a nice guy, and we don’t see him often, but I sometimes wish he’d put clothes on.

“Morning, Bob,” Jordan said, handing over the paper to the lion lady’s husband, who had been waiting for us by their garage. Completely naked.

“Morning,” Bob said cheerfully. He glanced in the back seat, smiled widely, and leaned his head in to talk. “Hi Zach.”

“Nice to meet you,” Marcus said, his voice breaking halfway through the sentence.

Bob beamed at him. “The pleasure’s mine. You boys have a good morning, okay?”

“Will do, Bob,” Jordan said as he backed out of the driveway.

“So,” I told Marcus. “That was Bob. He’s a nudist. We had no idea he even existed for the longest time. The first time we pulled up and he was in the garage naked, he was kind of embarrassed. As you can see, he’s comfortable with us now.”

“Do you not have any normal people on your routes?” my boyfriend demanded of Jordan.

“No,” Jordan and I answered in stereo.

“For instance,” Jordan said, waving at the house we were slowing down in front of, “this guy’s always in his kitchen when I show up, and he watches me from his window. Every morning. Frankly, I’d rather deal with Bob than have someone perv at me through their window. At least I know what to expect from Bob.” He tossed the paper into the creeper’s driveway, and we could indeed see him staring out at us.

And then he left the window, which he never did. As Jordan started to back up, the garage door opened.

“Oh hell,” I swore. “Hurry up and get going before he comes out to talk to us or something. Knowing our luck he’s probably an axe murder rapist or something.”

Marcus gave me a perplexed look and mouthed “axe murder rapist” silently as if he was trying to figure out what the hell I’d just said. I ignored it, since people tend to do that a lot around me. Instead, I watched the creeper’s house as Jordan pulled up to a house down the street to drop off their paper. I could see a car pulling out of the driveway.

“Huh, nice Porsche,” I said. “I wonder where’s he’s going at five in the morning, though. Seems like an odd time to take a drive.”

“Unless you’re us,” Jordan pointed out, but he was watching the creeper as he drove by, too.

I’d expected him to turn at the end of the road, but instead the Porsche came to a stop in front of the street’s nest of mail lockers. The old creeper got out of his car, checked his mail, and got back in. Then he turned the car around, headed back for his house, and closed the garage after him.

“Am I the only one who was vaguely disturbed by that?” I asked.

“No,” Jordan answered. “That was…weird. Why on earth would someone drive a hundred yards in a Porsche to check their mail at five in the morning on a Sunday?”

I rolled my eyes at their antics, but I was amused. “Can we go?” I asked. “The sky’s getting lighter, and it’d be nice to be at the diner before the blazing orb of doom is at the perfect angle to blind us all.”

“Good plan,” Jordan agreed, backing out of the driveway we’d been sitting in. “Let’s hope the rest of the morning is a little less odd.”

I winced at his words. You’d think he’d have learned not to tempt fate at some point in his life.

Coming May 15, 2015 from Dreamspinner Press

Blurb: Zachary Blaise is having a weird week—even by his standards. Though he’s gay, the radio personality has been dumped via text by a girl named Marian—and he’s never even met her. On top of that, he’s developed a massive crush on Marcus, the new waiter at his favorite diner. His best friend thinks the whole thing is hilarious.

Marcus’s week hasn’t been his best either. He’s been betrayed by those closest to him, and although he isn’t the guilty party, Marcus is the one getting harassed.

Impossibly, things are about to get even weirder. Marian has secrets, and those secrets are going to make some serious ripples in Zach’s life. When he discovers that the girl called Marian is actually the man named Marcus, Zach stumbles down a rabbit hole of abusive ex-boyfriends, psychotic relatives, and revelations from his own past. If he can survive the chaos, the journey might prove worth the effort.

About the Author: Andi Van lives near San Diego with a small fluffy thing named Koi, a baseball bat that’s forever being used for things other than baseball, and a fondness for rum and caffeine (though not necessarily together).

Andi is fluent in three languages (English, sarcasm, and profanity), and takes pride in a highly developed—if somewhat bizarre—sense of humor.

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